Greatness in victory and defeat

MICHAEL BRANNIGAN

Updated 10:00 am, Friday, August 31, 2012

Like most words, overuse spawns abuse. Consider Nike's celebratory and embarrassingly tasteless T-shirt for the U.S. women's Olympic winning soccer team — "Greatness Has Been Found."

Greatness?

What is especially refreshing about London's 30th Olympiad with its 17,000 athletes representing 205 countries is its stark reminder of what real greatness is about. Greatness is not something you find. Greatness is something earned only after unreserved struggle in achieving excellence.

It's not about winning gold, accumulating national medals, monies and endorsements, fanfare or kicking gluteus maximus. Olympic greatness is about striving for excellence with the sweat of discipline, hard work, skill, courage, perseverance, patience, willpower, right attitude, humility and integrity. It's about giving one's all to the struggle — nothing more, nothing less.

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Herein lies the games' transcendent quality, attested to in their religious origins. Iowa's Morningside College philosopher and former national intercollegiate champion cyclist Heather Reid tells us that "the games were part of festivals to honor the gods." This meant total commitment to an ideal beyond "me," "myself," and "I," so that, knowing our limits and imperfections, we still strive for excellence, as in the Olympic motto — Citius, Altius, Fortius, "Swifter, Higher, Stronger."

This drive toward excellence is not just about athletic skill. Aristotle describes excellence, areté in Greek, more importantly as traits that go into perfecting that skill — discipline, perseverance, and virtue, namely the marks of moral character. Areté is athletic competition's raison d'etre, in which there is no more noble goal than to strive for excellence. When an athlete gives her all — body, mind, spirit — her areté is physical, mental and moral, and transcends the conventional aim of winning. As Heather Reid states, "athletic pursuits are aimed at ideals that transcend mundane existence."

Greatness, as excellence of skill and character, transcends the contest itself. Greatness outlasts the race. Wilma Rudolph, who suffered from polio as a child yet won three gold medals in Rome in 1960 on a sprained ankle, went on to courageously defy segregation in her Tennessee hometown of Clarksville.

More notably, greatness reveals itself in how you win and particularly in how you embrace defeat. What ultimately matters is how we conduct the struggle. Indeed, our failures measure success. Losers validate winners. The meaningfulness of victory lies in the greatness of our opponents. Silver and bronze medalists permit the gold. And others certify the medalists.

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So when we honor the medalists, we honor all those opponents who gave their best. Like Britain's Derek Redmond who, in Barcelona 1992, after tearing his right hamstring painfully hobbled to finish the 400 meters semi-final with his father's help. Philosopher and marathoner Scott Parker quotes young runner Steve Prefontaine, who finished fourth in Munich 1972's 5,000 meter and died three years later in a car accident: "To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift."

To give our best while striving for excellence, physical and moral, and be gracious in victory and defeat — these are the ingredients of greatness. Our most tragic error lies in mistaking reward as the reason we compete. Excellence is its own reward. Though we worship winners, defeat can carry a deeper dignity.